


Life's Not Fair

by Calacious



Series: Comfort in November and December 2020 [10]
Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Big Brother Comfort - Freeform, Comfortember, Gen, Hugs, Nightmares, PTSD, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Darry helps Ponyboy through an anxiety attack.
Series: Comfort in November and December 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996825
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	Life's Not Fair

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Comfortember prompt: PTSD

“It’s okay, Ponyboy, you can let go now,” Darry’s voice is soft and soothing, which is enough to shock Ponyboy into doing what his big brother’s asked him to do, because if Darry’s being soft with him, then something must be really wrong. Darry’s never soft with him. He’s never soft with anyone who isn’t Soda.

“That’s it,” Darry says in a voice that’s too gentle to be real. 

Ponyboy blinks up at his brother, wonders when he ended up on the kitchen floor at home when the last thing he remembers is being at school, sitting at his desk, working on an essay for English. He’s shaking, and there’s blood on his hands, in the water. He can smell it in the air, but when he blinks again, the blood is gone, though the copper tang of it still lingers in the air. There’s just Darry sitting with him on the cracked linoleum of their kitchen floor.

“Wha--” Pony’s tongue feels heavy in his mouth, and his throat is dry, and when he blinks there’s blood on his hands, and there’s a knife and a fire, and he can’t breathe. 

“It’s okay,” Darry says, and he wraps his arms around Ponyboy’s shoulders, and pulls him into a hug, which is not at all what he’s expecting. “You’re okay.”

“I...where’s Johnny and Dally?” Ponyboy asks. He knows already. He knows that they’re dead. He remembers the knife, the blood, the fire and all those children. He remembers the gun and the police. He remembers it, but it all feels so far away. He feels so far away. If it wasn’t for Darry’s arms around him, and the cool linoleum beneath him, he knows he’d float away into nothingness. 

“Oh, Pony,” Darry says, and then he crushes Ponyboy to him and hugs Ponyboy so hard that some of the floatiness goes away. “They’re gone, you know that.”

It’s such a Darry thing to say. It’s grounding, and Ponyboy wraps his arms around his big brother, and holds on tight, willing some of the numbness that’s settled into his bones to go away. 

“I’m so sorry,” Darry says, and something in Ponyboy’s chest loosens, and then he’s sobbing like a baby. 

“It’s not fair,” Ponyboy cries, and it’s not fair. It’s not fair that Johnny and Dally are dead, and that Ponyboy’s left with nightmares that follow him into the day. It’s not fair that he’s left to pick up the pieces, to remember the blood and the fire, and Johnny’s last words, and the look on Dally’s face just before he was shot.

“No, baby, it’s not,” Darry says. 

Ponyboy’s expecting Darry to say that life isn’t fair, that he should stop crying like a baby, that he should move on. Darry doesn’t say any of those things, though. All he does is hold Ponyboy, and rub circles on his back until the tears dry up. Then he helps Ponyboy to his feet, gets him a glass of water, and helps him into bed. Darry lays down with him, and tells him stories of their parents, stories from a simpler time, and it’s Darry’s voice, and memories that follow Ponyboy into sleep instead of the stench of smoke and blood. 

No, life is not fair, and the nightmares will still come, but Ponyboy’s got Darry to help him through the worst of it. It’s this thought that eases Ponyboy through the next day, and the one after that. And when the nightmares crash through him in the middle of the day, stealing his breath, and sending him right back to the night when the Soc caught him and Johnny at the park, and the fire, and Dally dying in a hail of bullets, it’s Darry who brings him back. Darry who holds him tight to the earth and keeps him grounded.


End file.
